Deputy PM Akdoğan strikes back at HDP, calls it ‘extension’ of PKK

ANKARA

AA photo

Deputy Prime Minister Yalçın Akdoğan has retaliated against the co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who earlier accused the government of supporting a campaign of “lynching” and dragging the country into war after two nights of attacks against its offices.

“Without getting embarrassed, they are accusing the state and the government of declaring war. First of all, this is not a war, this is slaughtering of our people by a terrorist organization,” Akdoğan said on Sept. 9, referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been launching almost daily attacks against Turkish soldiers and police officers.

“The HDP is acting like an open supporter, extension and political branch of the terrorist organization,” he said, again apparently referring to the PKK.

Earlier in the same day, HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş had said, “So many children lost their parents. So many parents lost their children that we are ashamed to hug our own.”

Recalling Demirtaş’s remarks, Akdoğan said, “Those children were martyred by the terrorist organization which he [Demirtaş] supported.”

Tensions have spiked after 29 soldiers and police officers were killed in two separate attacks on Sept. 6 and Sept. 8, the deadliest strikes in the current phase of the conflict.

The violence spilled over into the streets on the night of Sept. 8, as angry nationalist mobs who accused the HDP of collaborating with the PKK attacked the party’s offices in several cities across Turkey.

Akdoğan described attacks against political party buildings as “vandalism” and added the government disapproved of such unlawful actions.

Demirtaş said more than 400 attacks had occurred in the past two days on workplaces, seasonal workers, newspaper offices and political party buildings, noting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu were continuing to target the HDP over violent incidents in the country’s east and southeast.

Akdoğan also took aim at the media, warning it should not serve as a “propaganda unit” for the PKK.

“Those who cannot say a word against terror, terrorists, the terror organization and its supporters are charging the government which struggles against terror. This is irresponsibility and supporting the organization indirectly,” he said.